It wasn’t that long ago that people believed mental illness behaved like the common cold. One of the reasons for the establishment of mental asylums was to quarantine the insane, thus protecting […]
Adolphe must have been the most unfortunate boy ever. He was certainly the most accident-prone. His mother concluded that he was “condemned to misfortune” and concluded that “he won’t live.” It seemed […]
As George Washington took the reins of government as the first President of the United States, some thought it would be wise to create a permanent protective detail for the chief executive. […]
On February 15, 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt was in Miami, Florida. Having just won the presidential election three months earlier, he was still 17 days away from being inaugurated as the 32nd […]
John Hinckley, Jr. and the two mental hospitals that served as bookends of his life. John Hinckley, Jr. will be forever remembered as the man who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan […]
Commodus (161-192), Roman Emperor from 180 to 192. Dio Cassius describes him as “not naturally wicked but, on the contrary, as guileless as any man that ever lived. His great simplicity, however, […]
Grigori Rasputin, the Mad Monk, was poisoned, but he didn’t die. So he went after the guys who poisoned him, and they stabbed him. He still didn’t die and kept going after […]
Commonplace Fun Facts 